


I need a good tentacle joke

by suzukiblu



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: 5+1 Fic, Accidental Confession, Crush, Friendship, Gen, Innuendo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 03:59:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18909094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suzukiblu/pseuds/suzukiblu
Summary: Kaldur has a question; the rest of the team does not exactly have answers.





	I need a good tentacle joke

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting some olllllld YJ fics from back in the season one days. This was written for yj_anon_meme for the prompt _Five people who tried to warn ______ that Superboy was bad news, and one friend who understood._

_five four_

“Dude, that’s uh, kinda _weird_ , don’t you think?” Wally asks doubtfully. 

“Totally weird,” Robin agrees with a nod, barely looking up from the computer. “So weird it’d still be weird even if we took off the _prefix_.” 

“. . . wait, weird doesn’t _have_ a—”

_“That weird.”_

“Why do you consider it ‘weird’?” Kaldur asks, frowning slightly at the pair of them. There are many reasons that him showing a romantic interest in Superboy might bother land-dwellers, he knows, but most of those are sourced in bigotry and he knows his teammates better than to expect anything like that to have anything to do with their reasoning. 

“He’s like five seconds old and you’re the first guy he ever punched in the face!” Wally says protestingly, gesturing sharply with both hands. “Unfortunate implications you think, maybe? And this after I _just_ managed to explain to him that hitting on somebody doesn’t involve _actual hitting_!”

“Yeah, that was funny,” Robin says, sniggering to himself. 

“Shut up, dude, not helping!” Wally shoots back at him. 

“I do not feel Superboy should be sheltered from experiences,” Kaldur tells them, shaking his head. “Letting him truly experience the world was part of why we saved him from Cadmus in the first place.” 

“Um, yeah, okay, but does that really mean he’s ready for the—help me out here, Wally, I need a good tentacle joke,” Robin says, making a beckoning gesture. 

“Ready to pose for _The Fisherman’s Wife_?” Wally suggests, and Robin gives him a withering look. 

“ _That’s_ not a good tentacle joke. How is that even a joke?” he asks. “Heck, you might as well have given me something about _barnacles_.” 

“First off, _The Fisherman’s Wife_ is like the whole reason tentacle jokes even _exist_ , and secondly, respectively speaking the barnacle’s actually got the biggest—” 

“I understand where you two are going with this,” Kaldur cuts in quickly, seeing the beginning of a long, long segue away from his initial point. “But I do not want to engage Superboy in any . . . tentacle-implied ‘activities’ that he might not feel ready for. I _would_ like to spend more time with him privately, however, in a less professional setting.” 

“So you wanna just cuddle until he decides it’s cool to get freaky,” Robin translates. 

“More or less,” Kaldur replies, eyeing him dryly. The sentiment is accurate, but he doesn’t appreciate the phrasing. Robin and Wally glance sideways at each other, and then burst into laughter. 

“You’re such a _girl_!” 

He supposes that’s the closest thing to their approval he’s going to get. 

.

.

.

_three two_

“Oh, you _like_ him,” M’gann says, deflating. “You know, how funny, I always thought who’d really make such a cute couple was you and _Speedy_ —um, Red Arrow.”

“Oh, totally, you guys would just be _perfect_ together! So much in common!” Artemis puts in quickly, raising both hands. Both girls beam convincingly, and Kaldur frowns back at them. He does not get the impression that they’re taking his concerns here seriously, or at least not in the sense he’d prefer. For one thing, he and Red Arrow don’t actually have that much in common. 

“I’m really not interested in him that way,” he says. “I just want to know if the idea of my courting Superboy concerns you in any way.” 

“Us? Noooo,” Artemis says, shaking her head with a very bad imitation of an innocent expression. 

“Hello, Megan, why would we be concerned?” M’gann asks brightly, with an even _worse_ imitation. Kaldur frowns. 

“If it _does_ bother you—” he starts. 

“No, no, we’re cool, we’re cool,” Artemis says. “Although you should totally give some consideration to that Speedy angle.” 

“Oh yes,” M’gann agrees. “It’s an excellent angle. You know what they say about archers!” 

“They say something about archers?” Artemis quirks an eyebrow at her. 

“. . . I don’t know, do they?” M’gann immediately looks worried. 

“I’m sure one of you can look into that,” Kaldur tells them dryly, assuming again that this is the closest thing to approval he’ll be getting. He knows the girls both admire Superboy for their own reasons and does not want to create any particular dissent among the team, but at the same time can’t help feeling it’s the sort of thing they should all be mature enough to deal with. They’re running covert ops for Batman; they should _definitely_ be mature enough to deal with thwarted crushes. 

Besides, it’d be far more problematic if one of the girls actively courted him. At least if Superboy reciprocates _his_ interest they’ll have the consolation of never having been competition to keep any jealousy at bay. Presuming Superboy isn’t bisexual, at least—he really hasn’t displayed any signs either way so far, and Kaldur admits to himself that it’s possible the other might be _asexual_ ; he doubts Cadmus would deliberately design a weapon that desired that kind of intimacy. 

Superboy is a person, though, and team dynamics and dissent and Cadmus be damned, Kaldur intends to give him the opportunity to choose what he does or does not desire for himself. 

.

.

.

_one_

“We aren’t really sure about the boy yet,” Aquaman says from the other side of the table, his expression just barely assessing. 

“I am, my king,” Kaldur replies sincerely, and that is all either of them needs to say on the subject. 

.

.

.

_zero_

“Well, it’s nice to know you’re going to the trouble of asking around, but if you’re that concerned why aren’t you talking to _him_ about it?” Black Canary asks, giving him an amused look. Kaldur pauses, and considers. 

“You may have a point,” he admits. Generally speaking Black Canary always has a point. He just wanted to be certain before he said anything to Superboy—the other is so inexperienced and he didn’t want someone to say something that might upset him later, however it turned out. “I’m afraid I am still unsure how to broach the subject without risking making him uncomfortable, though.” 

“Mmmhm.” She smirks. “Don’t worry about it too much, the super-hearing’s probably already clued him in anyway.” 

“. . . ah.” Kaldur blinks, slowly, and then decides that this whole endeavor was a _terrible_ idea and he really, really should have known better. At least he should have known better while Superboy was in the _base_. Black Canary just stifles a laugh. 

“Just for the record?” she adds with another smirk as she heads for the door. “Last place I saw him was his room, looking _awfully_ pink.”

Kaldur is uncertain if that bodes well or not, but at this point is quite certain that he owes Superboy a full and proper confession—and at least he knows the other won’t be bothered that he doesn’t know the proper land-dweller way to go about it. Something to do with dead plants and chocolate, he thinks, but it’s probably best not to detour to the harbor for seaweed just now, M’gann and Wally ruined the last of the chocolate attempting to make fudge, and Superboy likely wouldn’t understand it anyway. 

It _would_ be nice to have some sort of delaying tactic left, though. 

. . . perhaps he’ll go ask the Red Tornado for advice first. Just in case. 

“Oh, and you might want to talk to him _before_ training, since you’re sparring one-on-one today!” Black Canary calls back from down the hall. 

Or perhaps not.

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr!](http://suzukiblu.tumblr.com/)


End file.
